HA! You’re laughing! Casselberry? Fern Park? Isn’t that all about 436 and 17-92, you’re asking? Well yes, in a way; 436 slices through the heart of the old farming communities east of old Winter Park, and 17-92 bisects the old fern nurseries of Fern Park. There IS old to be seen here.

Casselberry only became a city in 1965. It has a very picturesque “old” section centered around the Triplet lakes, and its old unincorporated Fern Park section features a lot of old motels and pre-Disney relics strung along 17-92. Casselberry stretches down to Howell Branch Road, and parts of it are still wild, mere seconds from crazy 436. (Remember that you can click on any picture to make it larger and more complete.)

On Lake Ann Lane, just south of Lake Howell. This is a little known street that leads to the big properties that border the lakes .

Here’s Lake Howell as seen from one of the condominiums that line the lake’s west edge. If I don’t see a guard house, I venture in; I’m fourteen years old and invisible, which is how I get many of these shots. While moseying along today, I got caught in a giant cloud of dryer exhaust coming from the condo’s laundry facility, and smelled nothing but fabric softener for a few minutes. Ecch!

This next shot is up near Semoran Skateway, where I and my little spent many evenings in the past rolling round and round and ROUND at Gay Skate. What exactly is Gay Skate? It’s cruising on little rubber wheels, trying to glide with aplomb without looking too ridiculous. For me, that was mostly impossible because I would go into these spastic convolutions rather than just crash merrily into a rail or onto the floor. And you just don’t do something like that in front of a group of gay people, because you will be socially ostracized for life.

Just past the Skateway is the southern entrance to the Kewanee trail, another rails-to-trails path that threads through Casselberry and into Fern Park. I never knew it was there until I looked at Google Maps one day, and there it was.

Along the Kewanee Trail.

Pausing along the Kewanee Trail, with a culvert managing to look picturesque.

Kewanee Park is in here, situated deep inside the suburban spread. Who knew that this place existed so close to 436? Shirley Jackson would have a field day with this isolated little wetland: “and no one can hear you scream, in the night, in the dark… “

Back to Lake Howell Lane, which branches off east and west from Lake Ann Lane, is this imposing set of gates; I think I know of the people who live here. No bikes allowed! Do you think I need to fill my white basket with yellow jonquils?

No Bikes Allowed.

The eastern end of Lake Howell Lane borders on the western edge of the San Pedro Retreat Center. This is a grazing area for local cows, who tend to move to this part of the property at night. I’m told by a San Pedro employee that it’s creepy hearing the cows lowing in the dark late at night…

Two historians, Steve and Gayle Rajtar, have written a number of illustrated books covering   Florida’s history. I must credit the historical walking and driving tours published by them, which supplied some of the information I’ve gathered here.

Marker at Aloma Avenue and Bear Gully Road

From my house it’s a short ride along Howell Branch Road going east into the country toward Dodd Road. If you can mentally block out the sprawling suburbs that have sprouted all over, you can see the underlay of what was once a very rural farming area. When I moved here in 1978 I was struck by how many cows there were just a few minutes away from the intersection of 436 and Howell Branch. Dodd Road even had a dangerous right-hand corner at one point that would, if you decided to drive through the wall of yellow barricades, take you directly into somebody’s living room. Now it’s all been smoothed out and curved, yet you can still find the old road and take your bicycle along it. And there’s only one barricade standing.

The bike path looking east from Gabriella.

As you go north on Dodd, on your left you’ll see a road named Eden Point, which is surrounded by farms. There you’ll see cows as you are hurrying toward your destination. On the right you’ll come to a lane that heads east into some private property, and if you look at an aerial map you’ll notice a clump of forest at the end, with Gabriella Lane appearing on the other side, leading toward Tuscawilla Road and further east. There are no farms along the Lane now; they’ve all been sold off and replaced with giant houses on large acreage.

You’d never think that Tuscawilla Road and Aloma Avenue were once lined with farms and a railroad track, because everything is just about gone. However, if you mentally remove the suburban overlay– all very recent– you will find vestiges of the area’s rural past. Here on Tuscawilla Road, just north of Aloma,  is a piece of property where goats romp. Well… they don’t really romp, but they DO pay attention some idiot with a camera ventures up to their gate and starts taking pictures.

Goats!

Bordering on the bike path at Tuscawilla is this spot, where once stood the train station for the Bertha farming community.

Site of the Bertha station.

Just west of Tuscawilla Road on Aloma are the remains of a tiny little blue and white church that you may remember driving past up through about 2006. It began life as a school building in 1899 and by the 1980s it became the Morning Start Baptist Church. Its last incarnation was as the Bible Believers Tabernacle, damaged beyond repair by a hurricane in 2004. It was pulled down in 2006.

Remains of the 1899 schoolhouse.

Here’s the Burchard house just off Aloma, now the home of Perfect printing. It was built in 1927 from a pre-fab kit that Sears used to sell in its catalogue, and originally stood at 7421 Aloma; it was moved to this spot in 2000. Imagine ordering a house through a catalog? But people did, and the pieces would arrive and you would put them together and then move in. There are also a couple of Sears catalog houses out in Tildenville, west of Winter Garden.

The Burchard House, 1927.

This tiny place was built in 1927, a pre-fab, and christened the “Wee Hoosier Inn” by Professor and Mrs. Fred Gifford.

The Gifford home, 1927.

This is the Adriatico house, located on Grove Avenue. It fronts a large citrus grove which I don’t think is being cultivated anymore. It was built in 1926 and at one point along the front fence, under a very tall Washingtonia palm, there was a tombstone that read “Safe in the Arms of Jesus,” gotten from a cemetery in Jamestown (further northeast on Aloma). I haven’t seen it in a long time. It’s hard to get a full picture of this house because of all the overgrown foliage; even I won’t climb the fence.

Adriatico House, 1926.

Below you’ll see shots of a house that once stood near the corner of Howell Branch Road and 436, just east of the plaza where a lot of people I know used to get their Halloween drag accessories. I took these pictures in about 1992; I think this was the Tuck house; the barn burned down about two weeks after I shot these. When I was photographing the house, a woman came out and made friendly conversation, and then invited me inside. She proudly showed off the stove in her kitchen.

The Tuck House (?), early 1920s.

And here’s the Bower-Dike farmstead on Howell Branch Road, seconds away from schools, major subdivisions and shopping centers. It was possibly built in the 1880s, rented by the Tucks, and then bought by the Dike family in 1926. It originally sat where Signal Pointe Apartments is, at the northwest corner of Howell Branch Road and 436, but was moved to its present location in 1970.

The Bower-Dike home near Tangerine Avenue on Howell Branch Road.

Off Bear Gully Road, as you drive up from Aloma toward Howell Branch Road, you’ll find this undeveloped piece of land facing the lake; this is where I always manage to collect sand spurs on the laces of my sneakers. This was all farming country not very long ago.

On Bear Gully Lake.

Almost back home… I picked up the bike trail and approached the bridge from where a train station used to stand at Forsyth and Aloma.

And the bridge, which I skirted because I didn’t have to cross 436 to get home. A sidewalk off the trail brings you to 436, and then I just biked north, crossed Aloma, and was soon home. I tell you– the traffic was wall-to-wall, and it’s incredible how you can find these rural places without ever hearing a note of traffic. And I’ve never felt stuck out here in the suburbs, because these places are just a few minutes away from home.

The trail crossing 436 at Aloma.

Enamored with my newly-adopted home, I began collecting thing (no surprise to anyone who knows me). Here, for your entertainment, are some odd bits of things from my FLORIDA folder…

NOTE: Click on each picture for a larger, more detailed version.

The Florida Department of Citrus handed out postcards of their product for a few years, and friends of mine handed me a batch of them. I mailed them for years to antagonize my family in the frozen tundra of Brooklyn.

Winter Park was where I settled, though I’ve never actually lived within the city limits. My first address was Maitland 32751, in Orange County; my second was Winter park 32792, in Seminole County; and my current is Winter Park 32792, also in Seminole County, though I am actually located within the city limits of Casselberry. Yes… your social standing all depends on the post office which delivers your mail, which is why I don’t own a dinner jacket.

The fabled Langford Hotel was THE place to be seen in Winter Park at one time– the real Winter Park of 32789 fame. Here, women with beehives and barrel curls would sit at the bar talking with men wearing blue polyester suits. It’s true! just look at the brochure below. Afterwards, everyone would jump in the pool and sober up, hoping that that string of electric lanterns wouldn’t drop in.

I have  a Winter Park Chamber of Commerce booklet from the 1960s– the telephone exchanges in the ads are all MIdway. Here are a couple of pages describing home life. “There is no snobbishness here, and you are judged not by what you have, but by what you are.”  ”Houses are constructed here to conform to the casual, informal mode of living, and range in price from $13,500 to $100,000.”

I was introduced in 1978 to a Mrs. Anna Jillson, an assistant VP at the Barnett bank on Park Avenue. A very nice lady, she sometimes manned a teller station. One day I brought my visiting grandmother in so that she could cash her social security check. The young teller asked, very condescendingly, ‘ohhh? Does SHE have an account here?’ What?! Excuse me?! In response, I name-dropped: ‘Maybe I should go upstairs and ask Anna Jillson to come down and see if SHE can handle this professionally.’  Instead, the teller said nicely to my grandmother, ‘how would you like that, in fifties and twenties?’

I eventually traveled further afield, sometimes taking the bus to visit relatives in Sarasota. (I still have the ticket stubs.) This spread in SEE Sarasota, a magazine I treasured from when I first visited the state in 1970, gives the impression that Sarasota was home to women in beehives and barrel curls, barmaids from California, and underground films. I wanted to see underground films, desperately, but what I mostly did with my relatives was play miniature golf and eat pizza.

We went fishing one time in Sarasota (1970), casting off from a place called Uncle Bob’s Fishing Place, “where fishermen meet.” I helped push the boat in the water, and even baited my own hooks– with nicely comatose shrimp one day, and maniacally wriggling shrimp the next day. And I’ll never forget a little black girl asking for some ice at the marina. When she walked away, the middle-aged white man who gave her the ice referred to her with a racial slur that I thought you only heard in movies about the Klan. Boy was I shocked! If I knew then what I know now, I would have asked him: ‘What exactly do you mean by “where fisherman meet.” ‘

Have you ever heard of Xanadu? It was a futuristic house built on a plot of land on Highway 192 going through Kissimmee. It promised all sorts of delights– ‘experience 2001 technology today!’– but it failed to deliver. The place was hot and stuffy; the Robutler stood dusty and broken in a corner, and the bathroom ‘with its waterfall and spa and solar sauna’ wasn’t anything to write home about; in fact, I never did. ‘Every room reveals a futuristic surprise,’ the brochure promised– yes, it was very surprising that each room looked like 1955′s idea of the future. That sculptural tree was supposed to keep the interior climate-controlled, but when you got to the top floor you broke out in a sweat and stopped breathing.

When I got my car, I drove up to Deland and happened to take this photo just before the sky yawned and poured all over me and my camera… and now that I think of it, I know an Igou family.

Citrus crate labels are colorful and beautiful; you can get a lot of nice ones at the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation museums. And I think a Battaglia family has or had a big house on Palmer Avenue in Winter Park.

Time flew… soon it was time for Disney to expand…

I still enjoy going to Epcot. It’s Xanadu in a way, but they do update it every once in a while. I wish they’d get more countries, though.

And here is a map of Orlando from before Interstate 4 was built through the city, which forever bisected it into eastern and western halves.

And, finally, a page from The Orlando Sentinel, 1965…

I hope you’ve enjoyed your little foray into my filing cabinet. Now I’ve got to put all this stuff back…

YOU ARE WHERE?  The orange-colored county is Seminole, Florida’s fourth smallest. There are an awful lot of us jammed in here– just over 400,000 souls– but there are a lot of green areas where they won’t be building any subdivisions any time soon. We live in the little corner of Seminole County just east of unincorporated Goldenrod, and just south of a little bit of Maitland; if I drive ten seconds south on 436, I’m already in Orange County (yellow). Sanford is located on the south shore of the large lake at the top of the map, which is Lake Monroe.

I go up every week or so to the town of Sanford, the county seat, for a Latin service. No, it doesn’t involve my dancing around in a toreador outfit with a hat trimmed in ball fringe and clutching a rose in my teeth; it’s the 1962 pre-Vatican II Latin Mass which still survives in the hearts of cranks like myself. I sang it in choir for almost five years, and I tried to quit once, but Sister  Mary Saint Claire wouldn’t let me. “You don’t want to grow up to be a quitter,” she said. “So I won’t let you quit.” I like to think that she forced me to stay in choir because my voice rivaled Julie Andrews’, but that’s probably not the case: I was cute then, and looked good in group photos.

Sanford is an old river town that’s never quite been totally gentrified to yuppie extremes, but you’ll still find a lot of big, dignified houses downtown. You’ll see many of them on Park Avenue. There are a lot of houses that look like this one:

When you see a house like that, you’re inspired to paint, write, take long walks through the quiet streets, or find a porch and do some reading. There’s a calm that lays over the residential areas.

Look at that upstairs gallery– there’s a bench where you can take a nap– an excellent suggestion!

And look at this place below; it’s being rehabbed even as I type. I hope they’re going to get rid of that second floor room that’s strapped onto the columns because that Greek revival portico needs to be free and clear.

A friend of mine lived in this next little house; she was one of the first people I knew who moved up there to fix up a place. It looks very different from the way she had it, which was much closer to the original plan.

And look at this beautiful gem:

The following are various shots from the downtown business district, now a collection of antiques shops, boutiques, etc. What struck me about the antiques shops? Twenty years ago I would have obsessed about buying Fiesta, Depression glass, Hull pottery, and refrigerator ware. Now I’m like let somebody else buy it. It’s amazing how free of collecting and accumulating I’ve become. How liberating… but how bad I am for downtown Sanford’s business model.

This is a side view of the 1887 Pico Building… and it’s for sale! It says that it’s available for office space, but I picture a lot of artists living in here; the light hitting the windows seems perfect. Offices, schmoffices… we need more artists.

Here’s the back door to the Masonic Temple. Doesn’t an unassuming little door like that make you want to go inside? I know I want to, and I don’t believe half the things that go on inside Masonic temples. Sssshhh… you’re not supposed to tell.

And on the side of the building is this parking space sign:

I was tempted to move my car into that  spot. After all, I can be masterful and I’m certainly worshiped on occasion, but I didn’t want to risk getting a ticket, or being towed. Who knows what troubles I would encounter! I’ve seen all those movies about southern judges, and I know all the lyrics to The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, so I kept my car where it was.

And here are some stained glass windows that have been restored and placed back inside All Souls, bit by bit. At the end of Sunday mass, everybody sings Holy God We Praise Thy Name,  a cappella, which means that the sixty congregants are singing in eighteen different keys. Some would call that charming; I call it Purgatory.

I think this was a good introduction to Sanford. Now that I am once again in possession of a camera, I think the next thing to do is drive up there and then get on the bicycle and do some further exploring. It’s the sort of little town that has something interesting lurking around every corner and down every shady lane.

Blueie, Blessed

Today, in honor of St. Francis’ feast day on October 4, a lot of spiritual institutions are sponsoring pet blessings. Depictions of the saint always feature him feeding birds, his statues often covered with their by-products. Some churches, like the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine up in Morningside Heights, New York, go all out– sometimes you’ll see camels and elephants waiting patiently in the nave along with weimaraners, kittens, and iguanas.

Blueie the lovebird turned eighteen months old on October 1, so he’s big enough to understand why I’m bringing him to the San Pedro Spiritual retreat Center in Winter Park for their pet blessing today. He reminded me of it, in fact, this morning when I took him out to play in the cool new air. “Don’t think you’re going to lay around reading all day with your bedroom door closed,” he said. “We’ve got an appointment today. And make sure my traveling cage is clean… I don’t want to be embarrassed in front of the good Fathers.” Conveniently forgetting that he alone is responsible for any messes inside his cage– after all, I would hardly fit inside)– he made sure I lined the bottom with wrapping paper printed with snowflakes, which necessitated a foray into a closet, and a lot of rummaging.

And so we set off.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

We’re back.

Naturally, I knew that the most popular animal would be The Dog, and The Dog was represented about fifty times, each accompanied by at least two owners. Then there was a turtle brought by one of the friars. And then there was Blueie: terrified, and very quiet lest he attract the attention of some much larger animal who would want to jump on his cage. He needn’t have worried– the dogs, like their owners, basically ignored us.

A song sheet was passed around (illustrated with a graphic of St. Francis and a dog) so that we could sing  All Creatures of Our God and King, but I don’t sing; when I do, it sounds like a songbird has built a nest in my throat. Instead, I used the paper to keep the sun out of Blueie’s eyes. Then a prayer was read as a blessing toward the health and comfort of all the animals present, and then some, and then the friars mingled with the pet owners. The turtle friar asked my lovebird’s name, and I told him, and he cooed “hellooo Gloria! Hellooo Gloria!”  Gloria? I thought I was supposed to be the deaf one.

Though frightened, Blueie was very well-behaved, unlike some of the other pets who insisted on sniffing one another’s private parts. And while Blueie demands affection, I personally would draw the line.

It’s one of my favorite things to do, and now that it’s slightly cooler, I’ve been ramping up the hours I spend cycling. “Slightly cooler” is relative, of course; the temperatures are just as high as they were in July-August, but there’s something comfortable in the air which makes biking a lot more pleasurable than it was two months ago. Still, my ball cap ends up a sopping mess, but who’s watching?

Today I went back to the Winter Park Dairy to buy some cheese. It’s up on Howell Branch Road, its property backing up to Lake Florence. There’s a sign now, and you bike (or drive) down a dirt road past horses and cows, and at the end you’ll find another sign that directs you to the farm store. You can buy cheeses there, as well as local honey (Dansk Farms) and other dairy products like milk and eggs. What’s amazing is that these wholesome wares are located just a short drive east of the manic intersection of 436 and Howell Branch Road. Some years ago– not very many– I was taking pictures of an old barn located just off that corner, and a kindly old woman came out of the farmhouse next to it and asked if I’d like to see the inside of her home. (I must have one of those faces that doesn’t automatically brand me as an axe murderer.) She had a wood-burning stove in the kitchen with a pipe that led through the wall, and I had to remind myself that it was 1995, not 1935… it was all very surreal, and now there are apartments there, and clipped hedges, and I suppose a pool. I couldn’t tell you because there’s an electric gate that keeps nosy people like me away.

David and Dawn Green are the owners and operators of the Winter Park Dairy, and they are pleased to present their products to customers who appreciate the vital importance of patronizing and sustaining local businesses. It’s not a trendy, yuppified concept that the Greens are offering: this is a working farm with all the smells and sights you’d expect, utilitarian, honest, and simple. You won’t find cinnamon brooms for sale, or cat dolls stuffed with potpourri, but you will find healthy local products. I tell you– the cheeses are phenomenal, made from milk from cows that you actually see on the site. Last week I bought a chunk of parmesan, intending to grate it into a pasta dish, but it didn’t last that long. Today I bought a hunk each of their Black and Bleu and Cheddar. They’re in the refrigerator and, believe me, it’s all I can do to NOT land on them with a sharp knife and a glass of wine; the pleasure of eating these wonderful cheeses will have to be disciplined and moderated. Go– GO AT ONCE– to this farm store and avail yourselves of this wonderful local product. You might even find some locally baked goods for sale, but you should go early.

Dansk beehives.

The farm store... and my bicycle.

Content.

It was so beautiful that, after filling my white basket with cheese, I continued further east just to see what was going on in the neighborhood. I like to check up on certain favorite places, probably just to see if things are staying the same. I did see a large sign posted on a property that’s for sale, but I won’t even go into the how and why of all that; I just want to say that I think we have enough anonymous subdivisions in Seminole County already. And just to the right of that sign is this spreading oak tree on a property located at Eden Point, which isn’t even on most maps. Cars speed past this spot, but a casual cyclist like myself can tool along and see what’s what at leisure. Sometimes cows will gather under this tree to escape the heat of the noonday sun.

The mighty oak.

Grand Road is a mysterious byway (at least to me) wedged between Dike and Dodd Roads. The property here is partly taken up by a belt of electrical pylons, but there are still wild, kudzu-swathed areas just off the road. There aren’t many cars on Grand, and those that I did see were (mostly) attentive to the lone cyclist moseying along. I try to ride with my left elbow pointing out, to force cars around me, but sometimes they like to play chicken. Excuse me?

Heading back towards the house, I stopped at the San Pedro property, a meditative retreat center maintained by the Orlando diocese. You can get to Lake Howell along paths that have been blazed through the forest, or you can just sit quietly in the chapel or on a bench near pasture land which is rented to farmers. The cows were in the pasture further west today, and a gentlemen I spoke with said that it would be pretty easy to traipse through the meadow and find them, though he himself wouldn’t– “swamp monsters.” Sometimes at night he can hear the cows bellowing loudly to one another. “I don’t know what they are upset about,” he said. “Something is spooking them.” Swamp monsters?

I like stopping in the cool, quiet San Pedro chapel at the height of the day. I can turn off my ears and shut out all the noises in my head, listening instead to that still, quiet voice. I’ve figured out quite a few things in this silent place. And I can refill my water bottle at the cooler. Sometimes it feels like I’m the only person around for miles. Here, the chapel looks out onto the forest that ends at Lake Howell.

On the way home, I pass through an area called Slovak Village. It was founded in 1949 to accommodate Slovak families and farmers who had settled in the area. There is a cemetery there– the Slovak National Cemetery– in the little lanes located between Eastbrook subdivision and 436. Its name hints at something vast and filled with rows of Slovak graves, but it’s actually very small, though scenic.

And then home, which is maybe ten minutes away from all this by bicycle. Mind you, I’m not complaining about living in a suburb-cum-rural-exurb as I do, because I know I can easily get away from the noise and the traffic in just a few minutes… and find some artisanal cheese on the journey.

Not me.

This year I swore I would have the yard ready in time to plant tomatoes in September, rather than wait until early spring when it’s already too late. For three reasons, today was the day I found myself getting Officially Ready. My friend John in Massachusetts is a serious green gardener, and his eMails read like missives from the extension program over at the university. They are inspiring and informative and they goad me, year after year, into at least trying to duplicate his Herculean efforts and abundant results. The second reason came about as I was reading Barbara Kingsolver‘s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which my very culinarily accomplished friend Linda gave me. I love Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, and the one with the green cover, but this current book I’m reading is a departure into a non-fiction world of eating locally-grown and produced fruits, vegetables, and livestock. It’s a challenge, and we all need to do our share rather than make the corn-syrup fueled agro-monolith families any richer; besides, it’s more fun to go to local farmer’s markets on a weekend rather than fretting about the waxed fauna at the supermarket. The third reason is that Kirk moved the lawns in this heat, and I felt guilty.

Those are very good reasons for anyone to go out into his own yard and start turning the earth with a spade, which conjures up visions of healthy human beings marching out into the fields and singing as they how rows, row hoes, and try to avoid the anthills which appear like mushrooms after soft summer rains. Did I mention the heat? It’s six thousand degrees out there, but dig I must. Also, my middle has stubbornly been holding onto a chinchilla-sized ring of flab which must, MUST be made to fall away. So, dig I must.

What happens when you dig and weed earth that has not been touched since April? I and my cousin Nicola, who is about as close to the land as Lady Gaga is to joining the Republican party, was with me last sometime in April soon after he arrived from Italy. Conveniently forgetting that he is an indoor boy, I had us both hieing our way to Lukas Nursery in Oviedo for bags of mulch so that I could, hopefully, keep the weeds down that sprout like… weeds during the soft summer rains. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to spread twenty bags of mulch in a yard, but Nicola didn’t; he must have been a peasant in a former life because he soon went into the house (after helping me unload the bags) to relax in front of a comprehensive German grammar. And I think that was the last time I was in the yard, other than to gather tomatoes and clip herbs for sauce. We had some wonderful yields, I must say; there’s nothing quite like tomato sauce that you’ve grown yourself. It tastes earthy and green and actually healthy, with none of the sweetness that you find in jarred varieties. I mean, it’s nice of Paul Newman‘s company to donate all his profits from his sauce to charity, but mine tastes better.

Today I reacquainted myself with the yard, and it was like meeting a friend who has been away for months, only to return with the most unflattering beard and bushy eyebrows you ever saw. The areas of the yard that were never mulched were knee-deep in weeds, helped along by the strange, fleshy plants that apparently grew from the cow manure I’d used to plant the tomatoes in. After they were done, I distributed the cow manure throughout the year, and was astounded to see, after just a few days of rain, weeds like you never saw in your life: big fleshy things that resembled miniature jade plants, with yellow flowers… weeds that looked like rosemary, but smaller and unfragrant… and mushrooms the size of golf balls. Fore! Away they all went, into large black bags.

A pile of leaves and weeds that I actually created in March, but forgot since it was hiding behind a giant desert rose, turned out to have created a rich, loamy pile of compost. This I blended into the area where the tomatoes were, adding a bag of leftover tomato manure which I had neglected to distribute earlier in the season. (It was very hot that day; silence hung in the air like private lamentations during a virgin’s funeral. The sun stood in the sky like a yellow ball of recrimination, baking– or burning– the sins of a generation. A mockingbird trilled its song in a dusty Dutch elm which should have statistically been dead, and willows soughed their sighs on the breeze. Somewhere, a dog barked.)

Shoveling up the compost pile revealed a host of tiny black bugs that looked like snakes, and which attracted lizards from all over. It’s funny about lizards: normally they’ll skitter away from you, but if a sudden bonanza of treats is revealed, they’ll run right over your shoes to get at them. I wish they’d helped me move the giant chicken wire enclosure back into place, as it had become rather unwieldy after serving its purpose. (I had made it to keep the squirrels away from the tomatoes.) It was like wrestling an accordion while blindfolded, made especially more difficult because I was wearing flip flops AND white socks, like the old Vietnamese ladies at Mass, but I eventually got it in place, sort of. This year I plan on having it settle over stakes in the four corners, and then I’ll cut “doors” into the mesh so I can reach in and pluck tomatoes. Last season Kirk and I, like madmen, would take turns tipping the cage over while grabbing at tomatoes; you should have heard the cries: “My forearms are getting pierced by the ends of the wire! It feels like thousands of hypodermics!” “Oh, shut up.”

I’m very proud of getting a leg up on the situation this year, which is a good metaphor but not to be put into practice literally while gardening. If you MUST raise a leg while in the yard, for any reason, make sure you are wearing shorts under your shorts, because some bugs have wings, and they bite. I’m just saying.

I’ve been rather busy lately doing some home improvements. Home improvements, in this economy? Well, that’s what credit cards are for! So what if I pay them off at the rate of ten dollars a month for the rest of my life? I’m through worrying.

Our contractor friend, who was responsible for the beautiful tiled floors here at Chez Lucca, recently finished putting in a tiled shower in the master bath– and just in time, too. The original deadskin beige  tiles had been mounted directly onto drywall; the shower floor, when poured, had not been poured onto a steel mesh, and so it eventually began sinking. As a result, it cracked, and water got underneath the tiles and flowed toward the drywall, which wicked it slowly UP until the shower walls began to buckle. I’d attempted, in my amateur way, repairs over the years, using different sized and colored tiles, but eventually it all advanced into the realm known as Call the Menfolk. (Lennar Homes built this house in 1979, by the way. How come my mother’s bathroom tiles in Brooklyn have survived intact since 1912? Lennar ought to be horsewhipped.)

In three days, we got a new shower. It was originally going to be completely a sort of off-white, with a lighter whitish floor, but a stroll down the tile aisle at Loew’s ended up in the purchase of some green tiles which we “diamonded” into the white walls. Now it all looks very YMCA circa 1935, which is nice in a retro sort of way. You never know– Charles Atlas may appear one morning swathed in terrycloth.

The nice thing about a white bathroom is that you can see when it needs cleaning, which is great when you are me and God forbid a guest needs to use a master bathroom that isn’t like a showroom. The unsettling thing about all this white tile is that I’ll notice every sort of speck, some of which even move. I don’t know how those creatures get in there from the great outdoors, but I’ve seen bugs in that bathroom which I had never seen before; all that white tends to highlight them, and I find myself staring at oddly-segmented worms that crawl slowly up the walls, or beetle-like critters that aren’t quite roaches, but aren’t quite beetles either. Sometimes a spider gets in there, and I’ll see him skittering along just at the point when I am unable to get up and do something about him; or else I’m showering, one hand holding a bottle of shampoo, the other grasping a scrub brush, both my feet concentrating on not slipping and causing the braining of the owner of all those limbs. Before the remodel we had something called drain flies, which thrive in environments that are always damp. For months I wondered where these damn things were coming from, and then one day I saw one disappear down the drain.

Still, the pluses outweigh the minuses, and it’s nice to spend time in a bathroom that doesn’t look like the facilities in an abandoned factory. Assuming I’m not terrorized and carried off by some six-legged thing with viscous, rotating tentacles, I can see myself spending more time in there than I probably need.

Dad in 1949 – Age 18

If I had been older, smarter, and more enlightened, the obvious signs might have tipped me off right away. As it was, many years had to pass before it dawned on me.

Dad was a closet beatnik.

Probably the bongos should have tipped me off but, like I said, I was young. Displayed prominently in the living room of our basement apartment in Brooklyn, they presented not always mute testimony of my father’s musical aptitude– and ability which would no doubt have been nurtured in the dark, smoky depths of some unlicensed club in 1950s Greenwich Village. Once in a while he’d set them on his lap and whack out some rhythm, or whatever it is you do with bongos. They came in a pair, linked by a little wooden bridge, and one was slightly larger than the other so that two tones would be produced when he banged on them. I’d like to report that his heated rhythms enticed my mother into hedonistic, sweaty dancing, requiring her to throw her arms about in abandon, sweat flying from the tresses of her raven locks as she lurched through our tiny, four room apartment (with the bathroom out in the hall), but Mom had short hair like Audrey Hepburn and Tuscan women don’t fling themselves about for anything, or anybody.

And the bongos were only one of the signs. Looking back at pictures of us in Maine in July, 1960, Dad is dressed in white clam diggers, a blue-and-white striped French sailor’s tee shirt, and a week’s growth of beard. Barefoot, he poses casually at the lake, by the side of the cabin, or in a chair, his legs draped over the arms as if he doesn’t have a care in the world (besides Mom, my sister Lois, and me).

The most visible, lasting sign (who knows where the bongos are, or the clothes?) were the paintings. Didn’t all beatniks descend upon the Village after the War so that they could paint? And didn’t they all live in attics and cellars, starving for their art? Dad didn’t exactly starve, and we lived in Brooklyn, and he was in Korea, not Belgium, but he did paint. His work hung on the walls of our apartment for years, and went upstairs with us when we moved up a flight, and then new paintings were added over the years. He loved painting with putty knives and large brushes, giving him, I think, the sense that he was commanding the white space of the canvas. His landscapes and seascapes are textured and seem to jump out at you, making you feel as if you can walk into his forests and swim in his oceans. Even today I have hanging above my bed a landscape composed of nothing but churches in different styles and colors. As many times as I’ve looked at it, I don’t think I’ll ever know it completely.

He taught me to paint, though I was always too exacting, unable to sweep my brush across the blank fields: what if I made a mess? I made myself stay in the lines and bit my lips and squinted so that my trees and houses and flowers were rendered precisely. Dad painted sweeping visions of earth and sky, while I created perfect houses with curtains and chimneys and fences. Once in a while we’d go to the art fairs that would be staged all over Greenwich Village, when artists displayed their work on chain link fences, propped up against fire hydrants, or leaning against benches in tiny parks. I could feel him becoming inspired, and he would tell me how free and loose their techniques were.

I don’t remember if Dad spoke hep; his language abilities were limited to Brooklynese and occasional exasperated outbursts of Neapolitan, and the occasional mangling of somebody’s name. He never said too much, or too little, and most of what he said to me involved encouragement and compliments– and that’s cool.

On An Interview

So, like, you worked there for HOW long?

Seventeen years.

Omigod! Didn’t you get, like, bored?

No. And I was at my next job for almost four years, and I was at my last job for almost nine years.

No way! I’ve had like a thousand jobs and I’m only twenty three.

Sometimes I feel as if I’ve had a thousand jobs.

What? Really?

Figuratively.

Oh, okay, like you’re just kidding? I was like omigod this applicant’s had like a thousand jobs!

And so I quietly ease myself out her office door.

Answering Questions

I had to take a test at a place I applied to.

Standing at the counter, with my back to the store, I answer almost

two hundred questions about what I would do in certain

situations regarding customer service crises, inventory shrinkage

(we used to call it stealing) and personnel drama.

Maybe I answer everything too severely, or maybe not severely enough.

It’s hard to answer questions when you can’t see the eyes or the mouth

of the person who made up the questions.

And so I think I might be making up the answers.

A Thank You Note

“Dear Sir or Madame or Ms.,

“I am applying to the posted job regarding the office management position in need of filling at Humongo, Inc., a corporation which makes, through the wonders of chemistry and engineering, products ranging from hand grenades to diapers to teddy bears to pancake syrup to billy clubs.

“There was no mention of salary, and– as might be expected– this is probably an integral part of every job seeker’s goals. That’s me– a job seeker.

“I require a living wage– something that will cover all my expenses, with some left aside to put into a savings account. A savings account! Quaint, right?

“If the wage you offer is not a living wage, please say so. Eight dollars per hour is not a living wage. Neither is nine. In fact, neither is ten.

“Thank you.”

Living Death

The career counselor tells me:

DON’T put down on your resume the year you graduated college… or high school… or else they’ll KNOW. They can figure it OUT!

DON’T put all your jobs going back into the past… they can add up the years, and then they’ll KNOW.

They’ll know what?

That I’m practically dead?

Lying On Applications

When they ask on applications “what languages can you speak fluently?” does that mean

that they are asking FLUENTLY fluently, or just get-around-okay fluently ?

If I said that I can speak Estonian, Hungarian, and Moldovan, will they check? REALLY check?

It might look good on a resume but it could get me into trouble

when someone at my new job is bleeding to death

and everyone hollers “can anyone here speak Estonian?”

and then they all look at me.